Anant Raut
Anant Raut is an American lawyer. He was formerly an associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges. He is presently Counsel to the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives. Anant Raut is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School. After working for two years litigating antitrust cases at the Federal Trade Commission, he joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges. He has provided habeas representation to 5 Saudi Arabian detainees held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp,'About the author', http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/01/17/guantanamo/ including two of the 16 Saudis released from Guantanamo in early September 2007: Abdullah Al Anazi, and Abdul Aziz Sad Al Owshan. Another one of his clients, Adel al Nusairi, was featured in an April 22, 2008 Washington Post storyJoby Warrick, "Detainees Allege Being Drugged, Questioned", Washington Post, April 22, 2008 as one of a number of detainees who were allegedly drugged with unknown substances prior to being interrogated. As stated in the article, during one such interrogation in which a groggy Mr. al Nusairi was forcibly kept awake in an ice-cold room, eventually signing a false confession professing involvement in al Qaeda. The article further stated that a 2003 Department of Justice memoMemorandum for William J. Haynes II, "Re: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Enemy Combatants Held Outside the United States" (March 14, 2003)] by John C. Yoo explicitly condoned the use of drugs on detainees. Mr. Raut and fellow habeas attorney Candace Gorman were two of the first people to dispute the administration's charge that approximately 30 former Guantanamo detainees had returned to the battlefield, a claim later substantiatedMark Denbeaux et al., "Justice Scalia, the Department of Defense, and the Perpetuation of an Urban Legend: The Truth About Recidivism of Released Guantanamo Detainees" (June 2008) by researchers at Seton Hall Law School. In response to statements by the Department of Defense that it only intended to charge between 60 and 80 of the prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay, Mr. Raut prepared a series of slides in June 2007 showing the high cost of continuing to hold the remaining 300.The Guantanamo Blog, "What About the Other 300+?" In late 2007, Mr. Raut joined the Al Odah v. United States trial team, one of the cases decided as part of the Supreme Court's decision in Boumediene v. Bush, decided on June 12, 2008. In public documents filed in 2006, Mr. Raut alleged that Mr. al Nusairi had been a prisoner of the Taliban for three months, yet the government was treating his incarceration by the Taliban as affiliation with the Taliban in labeling him an enemy combatant. The government responded with court documents denying the assertion. The same allegation would resurface in a separate habeas petition years later. On July 22, 2009, Judge Richard J. Leon of the District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the release of Abdulrahim Abdul Razak al Ginco (aka "Janko"), whom the government had for years alleged was part of al Qaeda and/or the Taliban. In his opinionMemorandum Order, Abdulrahim Abdul Razak al Ginco v. Barack H. Obama et al., No. 05-1310 (D.D.C. July 22, 2009) Judge Leon stated that Janko had, in fact, been imprisoned and tortured by al Qaeda and/or the Taliban, a fact which the government acknowledged yet still took "a position that defies common sense" by arguing that he remained "part of" the terrorist organization that imprisoned and tortured him for eighteen months. Mr. Raut is a recipient of the 2007 National Legal Aid & Defender Association Beacon of Justice Award and the 2007 Southern Center for Human Rights Frederick Douglass Human Rights Award. Works *(with Jill M. Friedman) [http://www.fotofest.org/guantanamo/SaudiReport.pdf The Saudi Repatriates Report], March 19, 2007. *'Why I defend “terrorists”', salon.com, January 17, 2007 *(w J. Benjamin Schrader) "Dereliction of Duty: When Members of Congress Vote for Legislation They Believe to Be Unconstitutional," New York City Law Review (Fall 2007) *GTMO Documents, "What About the Other 300+?" References External links *Radio interview with Anant Raut Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:Guantanamo Bay attorneys Category:Yale University alumni Category:Harvard Law School alumni Category:American people of Indian descent